Were the president to take Joe Biden off the ticket, he would put lots of late-night talk show writers out of work, which, with the unemployment rate already long over 8%, would not be a good thing for the economy. Letterman, Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien practically dine out on Biden material. “I got to admit, as a comedian, I’m gonna miss President Bush,” Jay Leno once remarked. “Because Barack Obama is not easy to do jokes about. He doesn’t give you a lot to go on. See, this is why God gave us Joe Biden.”
Does Joe Biden have any sense that he has devolved into a comic character? It seems unlikely. For a man who smiles a lot, he doesn’t appear to have much humor. If he did, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, be Joe Biden. The want of introspection, of a just self-estimate, the detachment from reality that 35 years in public office is likely to confer on a man, is what makes him the delightful figure he is.
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